Mark's Blog

I first bought this game for the PC about a year ago when it was newly released, I tried it out briefly and my first impression was that it was ugly and given how ugly it was the performance was really poor given that I had a pretty good specification PC. It points to the game being a very bad console port like the original halo for the PC was. It too was ugly and very intensive in terms of load on CPU and graphics card.

I never really played this game on the Xbox but from what l am told by others that have its a direct port the actual game is exactly the same in terms of looks and playability except that on the PC you can get a far greater resolution. Now back to what I said earlier this game especially the earlier stages is very ugly I thought even the original Xbox could have produced something that looked better. For graphics I really would have to give this game a 3/10 it doesn’t even look like they even bothered trying.

Playability wasn’t too bad but the game felt very static and repetitive. Wave after wave only a few more each wave isn’t very adventurous or new. The levels were for the most part very unimaginative especially when compared to the original halo which had some great looking and thought out levels and this game basically feels like it was rushed to get it out whilst the hype of the original game could drive the sales up.  For playability I would have to say if I am being honest a 5 or 6 out of 10.

One real plus for me like the original halo was the music soundtrack the music is gorgeous and truly epic I think many game designers could get some real tips from Bungie on the musical score for their games.

Overall I’d give this game a 6/10. If you can get past the ugly and dated graphics especially in the first half of the game its actually fairly fun if very repetitive at times. But obviously their are newer and better games already out there.

Now I know this game is now a few years old but I finally got around to actually playing it right the way through after it having been sat on the shelf since it was released. I have to say not only does this game look fantastic the story is great and very imaginative.

A 1950’s city built under the sea where all manner of morally dubious experiments has destroyed the city which is now roamed by the genetically modified original inhabitants. The story twists and turns and is never really predictable or totally obvious. I just hope more games take note of the strong story element of this game and try to imitate it.

The look of this game is fantastic in full directx 10 glory. I hope this is the shape of games to come as visually it was spectacular, I recently played crysis and whilst this too looked good I actually thought bioshock looked better and the frame rate was rock steady on my pc(Core 2 quad E6600 @ 2.4GHz, GeForce 275 GTX, 6 GB of RAM, Sound blaster x-fi audibly(with SB Environmental Audio switched on), it never slowed down and was a seamless gaming experience.

I did experience some issues with loading screen freezes but patching the game upto the latest version 1.1 available here, and removing the tablet services from vista(don’t have a tablet anyway on my gaming pc) as detailed here fixed my issues.

I really can’t recommend this game enough, visually and audibly its nothing short of stunning, but the strong storyline and role playing element make this game nothing short of totally compelling and a must play for any gamer. If I had to give this a score its got to 9.5/10, main reason I only say 9.5 is the issues without the patch and also its too damn short! I know I definitely plan on playing bioshock 2 when it arrives, probably again on the PC. I know that bioshock and bioshock 2 is/will be available for the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX 360 and as much as I love the idea of kicking it back and playing on the big screen(well 32″ widescreen) from the comfort of the sofa is hugely appealing I much prefer to play shooters with a keyboard and mouse. Whilst I have and enjoy gaming on both the XBOX 360 and the PlayStation 3 I am at heart a PC gamer as I have always gamed on computers with a keyboard and mouse rather a console.